Here's the List!

OK - so a friend has “tagged” me to list the 10 most influential books in my life. I was sort of hoping that wouldn’t happen, but now that it has, I will do it and see what results. Of course, this is me, so you don’t get just a list, you get more of an annotated bibliography. :)

1. Mary Poppins: when I was in the third grade and we returned to an unairconditioned school at the beginning of a Hot September, our teacher would take us out under some trees after lunch and read to us. One of the books was Mary Poppins. My parents had read to me all my short life but Mary Poppins did what no other book had done. It opened the possibility of books to me: the possibility of magic, of adventure, and of being able to read the story over and over again. So began my love of books. 
2. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: the true adventure of a WWII bombing raid. The book came in a set my parents bought me when I was about 11 ~ one book a month. This one became ragged around the edges as I read a real life adventure over and over. Real life could be as amazing as fiction.
3. Wait ’Til the Moon is Full: a children’s book that I still give to my grandchildren. What I remembered even when I didn’t remember the rest of it was the description of the new moon which was “as thin as the curve of a raccoon’s whisker.” 
4. A Tale of Two Cities
5. A Christmas Carol: both by Charles Dickens whose writing is intense and whose insights into the world around him helped change that world. Would that I could. 
6. The Bible: probably not one of the books that the creator of this challenge was thinking might be listed and it has certainly influenced me. I was raised going to church every Sunday. I “read” the Christmas story before I could read. I use Biblical references and analogies quite often in every day conversations. And I am still in love with the “ah-hah” moments when some present experience highlights for me the meaning of some known scripture. 
7. Stranger in a Strange Land: this was the “cult” book of my generation. We inhaled it. We learned from it. We still talk about “groking”. It changed us.
8. The Prophet: wise words, challenging, illuminating, helpful
9. Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs: I was drowning in my own despair because no one seemed to understand and then a friend gave me this book. I read what she had to say about Aquarians and I wept. I was not alone. Someone understood. And for my Age at least I was normal. What a relief!
10. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: the first Agatha Christie I ever read and it set me on a mystery reading path I continue on today. 
11. The Sixth Extinction: this is your bonus ~ and the last book I read finishing it just the other day. It has raised my awareness of what is happening in the world around me and has me reading headlines with deeper insight.